


Harry Potter and the Impossible Future

by Akylascorch



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Angst, Crossover, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-05-02 01:11:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14533431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akylascorch/pseuds/Akylascorch
Summary: Harry Potter has just defeated Lord Voldemort as the Battle of Hogwarts draws to a close. Or so he thought. Suddenly needing to run, Harry ends up somewhere he could never have imagined: a Muggle hospital in America. When he finds himself in the care of a mysterious Dr Cullen, things start to go wrong. As innocent lives are put at stake, who comes out with their secrets intact?





	1. Prologue

_“Avada Kedavra!”_

_“Expelliarmus!”_

_Blazing light shot out of both wizards’ wands as Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort delivered each other their final blow. Staff, students and Death Eaters alike watched on as the Great Hall lit up with green and scarlet flames that surrounded the two wizards duelling to the death._

_Harry knew this would be his final chance to rid the world of the dark wizard who had caused so much chaos and destruction for all these years. Because of Voldemort, Harry’s life had been decided for him; from the death of his parents, to right at that moment at Hogwarts, there had never been another way, not really. Hunting down the horcruxes had taught him that, and now that there were none left Harry knew it was time for him to finish it._

_With an almighty crack, the two spells collided in mid-air into an explosion of colour and light. In his periphery, Harry saw a dark shape flit across the air towards him. Without thinking he flung his hand out to catch it and the Elder Wand landed in his hand and glowed, finally recognising its true master._

_Wrenching his gaze back to his enemy, Harry watched as the red glow in Voldemort’s eyes dimmed. He appeared frozen in time until, almost in slow motion, he tipped backwards and hit the cold ground with a thud, never to move again._

_For a moment nobody breathed. Then all of a sudden, as though a silencing charm had just been lifted, a great roar erupted inside the hall. People started running towards Harry, their saviour, all wanting to be the first to reach him. Just as the crowd began to close in on him, Harry heard something that brought him back to reality._

_Silencing everybody at once, a hideous wail filled the air, so animalistic the hairs on the back of Harry’s neck stood up on end. Suddenly more cries joined it: shrieks and yells that could wake the dead. Then people were flying. Bodies, both dead and alive, were thrown out of the way and the crowd was parted to reveal the owners of the cries._

_Bloodied and bruised, the captured Death Eaters rose to their feet after they had been abandoned by their protectors while they celebrated. Striding forwards, they raised their wands and directed them straight at Harry. Members of the Order tried in vain to reach the front of the crowd to shield Harry from the oncoming curses, but they couldn’t move fast enough._

_All at once, Yaxley, Rookwood, Macnair and Dolohov fired at Harry, their shouts blurring together making it impossible to distinguish the individual curses. The only thought that ran through Harry’s mind was to get out of there_ _._

_Securing the Elder wand in his hand, Harry’s eyes found those of Ron, widened in terror. Trying to convey as much thanks and sorry into that last gaze, he turned on the spot to disapparate._

_But something went wrong._

_Instead of the feeling of being squeezed through a tube, all Harry felt was a sharp tingling travelling the full length of his spine. Wind rushed past his ear as the tingling changed into blinding pain, paralysing his body. He saw bright lights flashing behind his closed lids and he felt himself get thrown off course and into the darkness._

_All of a sudden the rushing noise stopped and he felt soft ground beneath him. He still felt the same tingling sensation as before, as though electricity was coursing through his limbs. Struggling to breathe, Harry pulled his eyes open and only barely registered the darkness of night that was wherever he had landed. Unable to hold on to consciousness for a second longer, his eyes slid shut and Harry Potter’s mind slipped into darkness._


	2. Chapter 1

“–pefully wake up soon. He’s been out for more than three hours.” The voice was concerned.

He tried to open his eyes but they remained firmly shut.

“Thank-you, Simon. I’ll keep an eye on him for now.” This voice was clearer. Smoother. Calming.

The sound of a door opening. Closing again. One of the voices left.

He tried moving his hand and managed to stiffly make it into a fist. Rubbing it against the surface he was lying on, he could feel a smooth material that was soft to touch. He tried lifting his arm but felt it obstructed by more of this fabric. Panicking slightly, he grasped at his soft cocoon and managed to get his arms free and placed them down beside him on top of more sheets. He finally concluded that he must be on a bed. He tried his eyes again and found that this time they were opening.

The first thing Harry Potter saw upon opening his eyes was a blinding, white light. After blinking a couple of times, he turned his head to regard the room he was in, only to notice everything appeared blurred. Blinking twice more and seeing no change in his vision, he gave his eyes a quick rub. This didn’t help either. It was only then that Harry Potter remembered he wore glasses.

“Mr Potter, how nice to see you’ve finally woken. We have been wondering when you might stir.” Harry recognised this as the second voice from before as he tried to focus on the blurred outline of the figure who was addressing him.

“How –,” he croaked. His throat was raw from lack of use. “How do you know my name?”

“It was written on the inside of the sweater you were wearing. We thought it best to remove it for hygiene purposes,” the blurry figure moved towards him appearing to be holding something dark in his hand. “Here. ‘H. Potter’ just on the inside of the neck.” The object was placed in Harry’s lap.

Harry could just make out that it was indeed a sweater, but no more than that. The man must have noticed Harry’s blank look as he suddenly exclaimed, “Oh, I apologise. You wear glasses, don’t you? They’re just here beside you, mind you they’re not in very good shape.” Harry put his hand out to find his glasses, but instead found they were already being extended out to him. He took his battered glasses off the man, gently brushing his fingers in the process. A shiver ran down Harry’s spine as the cold from the man’s hand seeped into his own.

Putting on his cracked glasses, Harry was finally able to make out his surroundings. His earlier suspicions were proved correct, for he was lying under the white linen sheets of a bed. Moving his eyes around the rest of the room, he noticed that beyond his bed there was little other furniture; with the exception of a table, two small cabinets and a chair beside him, the room was empty.

On the wall over to his right was a large window, shut tight to keep the warm air inside. From where he was on his bed, Harry could make out only the roofs of other buildings and lots and lots of trees. Opposite the window on the wall to his left, there was a simple door. He sometimes saw a silhouette of a person rush past through the frosted glass in its windows.

“Where am I?” Harry asked as he continued to take in the layout of the room. He could hear voices occasionally floating past the door.

“You don’t remember what happened, do you?” Harry turned towards the voice on his left to look at the calm voiced man properly for the first time.

The eyes were what Harry noticed first: a deep golden colour that seemed to pierce Harry’s own as he stared. There were faint signs of dark shadows beneath them, highlighted by his incredibly pale skin, which indicated a lack of recent sleep. His slicked blond hair accentuated the chiselled features of his face which began to move again as he started to speak.

“This is Forks Hospital. You have been here since this morning when I found you lying by the side of the road on my way in to work. I brought you in and have been monitoring your condition since then,” the doctor explained, for Harry could put two and two together to work out this strangely good looking man must indeed be a doctor.

Forks, however… what on earth was that? Judging by the equipment that he now noticed surrounding his bed, Harry guessed this was not like St. Mungo’s and was in fact a muggle hospital. But Forks? What did silverware have to do with the naming of a hospital?

“Uhh…Forks?”

The doctor frowned.

“Yes, Forks,” he confirmed slowly. “This is the town of Forks, Washington.”

Washington…that’s in–

“I’m in America?!” Harry sieved through his memories trying to work out when and how he had crossed the Atlantic.

Voldemort was dead. He remembered that much. He had finally done what the prophecy had predicted and yet it made him feel hollow. So many people had died– no, that didn’t do them justice. So many people had been _murdered_ for the cause of stopping Voldemort: Remus, Tonks, Fred, even tiny Colin Creevey. Thinking about it all made his head hurt. It was a long while before he realised the doctor was speaking again.

“Mr Potter? What’s the last thing you remember?” he had a look of genuine concern on his face as Harry stared blankly into space with sadness in his eyes. Harry couldn’t work himself up to answer the doctor. The last thing he remembered?

He had been in the Great Hall, surrounded by his professors and fellow students as well as the Death Eaters they had captured. The stench of loss from the bodies haphazardly piled around the room briefly evaporated as everyone celebrated the defeat of the Dark Lord. It was during this celebration that the watch on the remaining Death Eaters was lowered, as four simultaneously sent curses flying Harry’s way. In the split second of time he had, Harry disapparated not really knowing where he was aiming for. After that he just remembered unimaginable pain, and then nothing.

Now the blanks were getting filled. His desperate attempt at escape had landed him in America badly damaged by the curses that had hit him. He must have landed by the side of a road and passed out.

He sighed. Why did these things always happen to him?

Harry suddenly realised the doctor hadn’t given his name, and also kept calling him Mr Potter. It was beginning to get on his nerves.

“Please, call me Harry,” he supplied the doctor. “I’m sorry, sir, but I still don’t know who you are.”

The doctor gave a warm smile before replying. “Forgive me, I should have introduced myself earlier. I’m Doctor Cullen, Harry.” His smile vanished as quickly as it appeared before he added, “Can you tell me how you sustained these injuries? They don’t look like those of a hit-and-run incident.”

Of course they bloody don’t, Harry thought. They look more like those of someone who has been on the run hunting horcruxes to defeat the most dangerous wizard in the world, and yet somehow escaped from dying at the hands of said wizard’s mental followers.

Harry blinked. Something told him that Doctor Cullen wouldn’t quite believe that.

“I don’t remember,” Harry lied. “I have no idea what happened before I woke up here.” It was somewhat true. He had no idea how he had apparated into a tiny town thousands of miles away. Was that even possible?

“You’re English, aren’t you? And you were surprised to hear you are in America. Are you with your parents?” A small frown marred the doctor’s face as he worked to solve Harry’s mysterious arrival. Harry though wasn’t interested in providing answers. Instead of responding to Doctor Cullen’s questions, he busied himself with studying his injuries.

He lifted his hands up toward his face and let his eyes trace the small cuts covering them, as well as the bandages that presumably hid the larger ones. He could feel a compression band around his left ankle and his shoulder was stiff with thick binding to hold it in place. His fingers skimmed over the many small cuts that adorned his face, and stopped just short of the thin scar hidden by his fringe. It didn’t burn anymore, the lightning bolt etched on his forehead, but he would always have it to remind him of what he had lost.

He looked back at the doctor, whose piercing eyes were studying every one of Harry’s movements. What had he asked? Something about his parents? No, of course he wasn’t with them, but he had been. Those few minutes in the forest with the Resurrection Stone had been bliss. He had heard its power was dangerous and understood why; it reminded him of his attraction to the Mirror of Erised in his first year. He looked down at his hands as the memories came flooding back.

“I –” Harry started to speak but was cut off by a blood curdling scream ringing through the hospital. Harry sprang bolt upright as Doctor Cullen raced to the window.

“Oh my…”

Ignoring the complaints of his body, Harry jumped out of bed and stumbled over to stand beside the doctor.

“What the –” Harry just stared at the sight before him.

The terrified faces were the first things he noticed. Then the running. He knew that running; it was fearful running. The sort of running you reserved for when nothing mattered but your own safety. What must have been twenty people were scurrying away with terror etched upon their faces. Harry turned his gaze away from the fleeing people to find what they were running from.

On the block next to the hospital sat a construction site, visibly a few months under way, and this appeared to be the cause of distress. A two storey high scaffolding structure sat high above the pavement and looked set to collapse, though this wasn’t what made Harry’s blood run cold; high on top, standing on a worker’s platform, stood seven people clutching the railing for dear life.

Clustered in the middle of the platform stood the workmen holding each other in a vain attempt at keeping upright. Occasionally one would slip sideways as the scaffolding violently lurched, threatening to give way at any moment. Harry couldn’t quite make out their faces from where he stood at the window, but he had a fair idea of what they would look like.

Harry turned to Doctor Cullen, hoping to see him going for help, but he stood there motionless. In his eyes was a look of deep indecision and conflict, as though he were having an internal debate on what to do. Looking out the window again, Harry had to admit he felt the same; should he risk doing magic? He turned back to see the doctor still standing there.

“Aren’t you going to do something? Those people are going to be killed!” Harry started to fumble with the latches, trying to open the window. His hands stilled when he felt a cold hand come down to rest on his shoulder making him turn back to look into those golden eyes.

“There’s nothing we can do, Harry.” Doctor Cullen sounded strained, apparently resigning himself to what was happening, but not happy about it.

Harry couldn’t take it. Screw the Statute of Secrecy. He didn’t know if the same laws applied in America but he wasn’t going to watch seven people fall to their deaths.

“Maybe you can’t. But I can,” he muttered to himself before tearing his gaze away from the scene and sprinting out the door.

Harry bolted through the corridors, dodging doctors and ignoring the cries of alarm. He set himself on following any exit sign he saw, hoping that they would lead him out to the street. He vaguely remembered that he should not be running; half an hour ago he had been unconscious. His tired body, however, was used to working in poor conditions and he knew that with the adrenaline pumping through his veins he could go for hours.

Turning a corner much too quickly, Harry crashed into a trolley and went flying. The doctor who had been pushing the cart shouted in alarm as the dark haired boy bowled him over. As heads poked out of doorways to see the cause of the ruckus, Harry pushed himself up off the ground and tried to resume running. In his dive however, he had landed awkwardly on his already sore left ankle, and so his running became more of a speedy hobble.

Finally he made it to what looked like the main entrance. Leaping outside Harry spun to look for the construction site. He stood panting at the doorway trying to catch his breath, when he heard the screams start-up again over to his right. He limped towards it while reaching in his pocket for the Elder Wand. He found it in its usual place, internally grateful the doctors hadn’t taken it from him, and pulled it out as he looked up at the building.

The groaning of the metal seemed to have risen several decibels, as it prepared to give way. The screaming became shrieks of terror, and without bothering to see who might be nearby, Harry pointed his wand and shouted at the top of his lungs:

“ _WINGARDIUM LEVIOSA_!”

The scaffolding froze in mid-air, but Harry was almost forced to break the spell immediately. He fell to his knees and let out a gasp of pain as what felt like thousands of volts sparked down his spine. Harry barely registered that the screams had stopped, as the only sound left was the angry grinding of steel against steel, threatening to continue its path down to earth should he lose concentration for even a second. With an almighty CLANG, Harry only barely managed to guide the structure up against the neighbouring building, allowing the workmen to scramble off to safety. Once he saw all seven people were off, Harry let the structure fall to the ground and with it, the pain disappeared. Pieces of piping and scrap metal flew in every direction as it smashed to the concrete.

Harry pocketed his wand and gasped for breath. He could still feel a light tingle in his arms. When he looked up again, he saw a shard of metal coming for his face. Only having enough time to turn, the metal struck Harry on the side of his head before he crumpled to the ground in a heap.

Sinking into blackness for the second time that day, Harry never noticed the golden eyed doctor watching him closely from the shadows.


	3. Chapter 2

Carlisle clicked his office door shut and leaned back against it, letting out a needless breath. He had just finished applying stitches to Harry's head where the fragment of metal had struck him and had now returned to his office to do some much needed thinking.

After…whatever it was Harry had done, Carlisle had frozen in awe until the boy collapsed and the smell of blood became thick in the air. Brought out of his daze at once, Carlisle had called for assistance and returned Harry to his room where he remained unconscious. Now was Carlisle's first opportunity to properly consider what he had seen.

As soon as his breath had left his lips, another interruption came with the ringing of his phone. Flashing over to his desk chair, he pulled his phone out of his coat pocket and with a quick glance at the screen, pressed the answer button.

"Alice? What's wrong?" his adoptive children rarely phoned him while at work and when they did it was usually trouble.

_"Carlisle? Oh my god, you're alright. What happened? Did anyone get hurt? Why didn't you pick up?"_ Alice reeled off at a speed impossible for a human to understand.

"Forgive me, Alice. I foolishly left my phone in my coat pocket in my office, and I was too preoccupied to hear it where I was. You saw the scaffolding collapse, then?" Carlisle had noticed the subtle tremor in his daughter's voice and started to feel the guilt rising.

" _Yes and no. I saw it but I couldn't see you anywhere. I haven't been able to see you all day. What's going on?"_ The anxiety was now clear in Alice's voice, and Carlisle winced at how much worry he must have put his family through. Alice had never not been able to follow any of them in her visions. Carlisle wondered if his mystery patient might have something to do with the 'glitch', for want of a better word.

"It's alright, Alice. Only one person was hurt and they are currently in my care in a stable condition," he soothed, before adding in his thoughts  _'Or should I say_ back  _in my care.'_

A thought then came to him. "In fact, is Edward there? I would like him to come down if he could." Why hadn't he thought of his son before? Harry was completely unwilling to provide Carlisle with any information that he could use to figure out what happened, and Edward was the perfect solution. Carlisle tried to reassure himself that it was the right thing to do.

" _Edward will be there any second. He left to go find you after you didn't pick up the third time."_ Carlisle winced again.

"I truly am sorry, Alice. I should have had my phone on me."

" _That's alright, Carlisle. I'm just happy you and everyone is ok…well, apart from your patient. Is that why you want Edward? You want him to read your patient?"_ Even without her gift Alice was very perceptive.

"Actually, yes. Normally I wouldn't ask of him to do this but there's something about this boy. Something…different." He really had no words to describe what Harry was, and he wasn't about to begin trying over the phone.

" _Ooh I love when you get interesting people! Tell us about it tonight, Edward should be pulling up outside now, I don't want to keep you. Bye Carlisle!"_

Carlisle smiled at his daughter's enthusiasm. "Goodbye Alice."

Sure enough as Carlisle returned his phone to his pocket, he heard Edward's voice speaking to the receptionist in the foyer. He made his way over to his desk and leant against it, listening to Edward make his way humanly slow down the corridor.

' _I'm sorry, Edward, for worrying you all. Everything is fine, I've spoken to Alice,_ ' he thought, hoping to put his son at ease.

Carlisle looked up as Edward opened and closed his office door in the blink of an eye. He looked back at his father with hard, black eyes and stood with his hands shoved deep within his pockets. His posture was unnaturally straight with shoulders that were stiff and unmoving. He wasn't breathing.

Carlisle just sighed and looked at his son with pity.

"Edward, if you needed to hunt this badly you shouldn't have come. I don't want to make you uncomfortable." Carlisle knew Edward's self-control wasn't quite on the same level as his, but he still had faith in his son. If only Edward had as much self-assurance.

"It's fine. What happened, Carlisle?" Edward grumbled with a voice as firm as his stance. Carlisle could tell it wasn't fine.

' _Edward…_ '

"I said that it's fine, can't you just tell me what's going on instead of worrying about me?" he snapped back. Carlisle raised his eyebrows as if to say 'what did I tell you'.

Obviously hearing this in his father's mind, Edward made an effort to physically relax. His shoulders slumped and he leaned back against the office door just as Carlisle himself had done earlier. He closed his eyes and paused before speaking again.

"Sorry. We're going hunting tonight. I'm ok, really. Please, Carlisle, what happened this morning? Alice didn't –" Carlisle cut him off by replaying in his mind all the events of the morning, from finding Harry, to hanging up on his conversation with Alice.

Edward frowned.

"How did he do that?" Carlisle could tell what Edward was referring to: Harry's little performance.

"I don't know. I've never seen anything like it." Not even after three centuries in the world of the supernatural had Carlisle ever witnessed something like what Harry did that morning. It was both exciting and unnerving.

"He seemed to be in pain."

"Yes," Carlisle nodded. "He seemed to expend a great deal of energy. Perhaps too much."

Carlisle watched Edward's head tilt as he delved deeper into his thoughts.

"You're concerned about him." It wasn't a question.

"Of course. I hold concern for all my patients." Though this was true, Carlisle knew that Edward would see through his excuse.

"More than your standard patients, though." Edward squinted his eyes slightly as though trying to focus more on Carlisle's thoughts.

Carlisle furrowed his brow, looking into the black voids that were Edward's eyes. "That's because Harry is not a standard patient," he stated simply.

He suddenly sprang up from his desk and glided to the filing cabinet against the wall. Quick as a flash, Carlisle skimmed through them all before drawing out the one he needed, 'Potter H.'.

"I'd like you to come and see him. Speaking to him earlier, it was clear that he wasn't comfortable with sharing any information about himself. Harry says he has no recollection of what happened to him, but I think he's lying." Carlisle looked once over Harry's very empty file. The only personal information they had was his name and his nationality. Other than that the file only outlined his status within the hospital: his room number, injuries and time of admission. Carlisle needed to know more about Harry. About what he was.

"So you want me to look in his mind," Edward supplied, a smirk playing across his face. "Doesn't that go against patient confidentiality?"

Carlisle closed Harry's file and made to move past Edward to the door, not before giving him a look.

"With you, Edward, there's no such thing as confidentiality." Carlisle opened the door and moved out into the corridor. "It's the only thing I can think of to get answers. I would like to help him, if I can."

* * *

Edward followed Carlisle through the door into Harry's room and stopped in his tracks. He stiffened and turned to look at his father who just smiled.

' _You can feel it as well, can't you_?' he heard Carlisle ask in his thoughts.

Edward closed his eyes and continued to hold his breath, hoping to eliminate some of his senses to try understand what he was feeling. As soon as he had stepped inside, Edward had felt a strange presence in the room, not unlike what vampires felt when nearby another of their kind. Vampires could sense each other not just by their smell and appearance, but also by the power they radiated. Each vampire's was different, some more powerful than others. It was something that humans just didn't project. So why did Harry?

It was like nothing Edward had experienced. Even the Volturi didn't feel this powerful. He could see now why Carlisle was intrigued.

Edward reopened his eyes and looked back at his father who spoke.

"He smells different too. His blood doesn't smell like that of other humans," he murmured with his eyes trained on Harry.

"I'll take your word for it." Different smelling or not, Harry still had a lot of blood on him, and Edward wasn't sure he would be able to resist the temptation.

Carlisle looked back up at his son, face painted with sympathy. Drawing the attention back away from himself, Edward changed the subject.

"His injuries are strange. He wouldn't say how he got them? Isn't that suspicious?" How a seemingly ordinary teenage boy – in appearance anyway – could suffer from such devastating injuries was beyond Edward's comprehension. As well as the deep gashes covering his body, there were dark bruises mottling his skin, some of which looked days old.

Edward also noticed that none of Harry's cuts looked like they had been tended to properly. They were still stained with blood and dirt, and some of them looked like they required stitches. He knew Carlisle wasn't this careless, so it surprised him.

Walking slowly to the side of the bed, Edward traced the air above Harry's wounds, trying to count them. He couldn't. Keeping his eyes on Harry, he sensed Carlisle move to the other side of the bed.

"Nothing would work on them. Cleaning only did so much, and anything with which we tried to close his wounds failed: stitches would unravel, bandages wouldn't stick. I'm very worried they might become infected. Only the smaller ones could be covered properly. You're right; his injuries are most certainly not normal."

Silence fell on the two vampires struggling to comprehend the boy that lay on the bed between them. After a few minutes, Carlisle seemed to remember why he had requested Edward's help in the first place.

' _What can you hear, Edward?_ ' He asked his son in his mind.

Edward glanced up at his father before fixing his gaze upon the boy. Only when his father had asked about Harry's thoughts, did Edward notice there was one voice too few in his head.

He couldn't hear Harry's mind.

Edward sharpened his thoughts and focused solely on his gift, but the only voice he could hear was that of Carlisle, concerned about the faces his son was pulling. Edward tried probing deeper into Harry's mind, but met nothing but a solid wall. Seeing if it would help, he envisioned a battering ram slamming into the wall in an attempt to shatter it and get past. This only got a small wince out of Harry as his mind was assaulted over and over. Giving up, Edward pulled from his head.

Carlisle had obviously noticed Harry's reaction and voiced his concern.

"What was that? Is he having a nightmare?"

Edward just shook his head, his eyes not leaving Harry's face.

"I… don't know. I can't hear anything. I can only hear your thoughts." Hearing no response, audibly or otherwise, Edward lifted his face to look at his father. "You knew this would happen. That I wouldn't be able to hear Harry's mind," he hissed in an accusatory tone.

"I didn't know. I simply suspected," Carlisle defended. "The events of this morning suggest he has the ability to block Alice's gift and so I merely guessed the same might happen to you. Though I was hoping it wouldn't."

Black met gold as Edward held his father's gaze.

"What does this mean?"

"It means Harry is something we have not come across before," Carlisle murmured with a mixture of concern for his patient and excitement of the unknown.

Suddenly the boy on the bed began to stir.

"He's waking up. Edward wait for me in my office. I'll be with you shortly after I have another word with Harry." Carlisle immediately switched back to doctor mode and went to pick up Harry's file from where he had placed it.

Leaving the room, Edward let the doors swing shut behind him with a soft 'whump'. Even from the other side of the wall, Edward could still feel tingling through his body the power belonging to the mystery that was Harry Potter.


	4. Chapter 3

For the second time in a couple of hours, Harry opened his bleary eyes to a bright, white light above his head. Blinking hard, he tried to push himself up but stopped as he felt a pounding in the side of his skull.

"Take it easy, Harry. You've taken quite a knock." The smooth voice was back and Harry turned his head towards the sound.

Doctor Cullen stood there looking just as perfect as before, except possibly slightly less at ease. His brow was lined with worry, looking very out of place on his youthful face. Hanging the folder he was holding over the railings of the bed, the doctor moved to stand beside Harry and gave him a calculating look, as though he were trying to figure something out.

Harry began to feel squeamish under the doctor's gaze. Had he seen what happened? Had someone else seen Harry stop the scaffolding and told Doctor Cullen as Harry's doctor? Deciding to be cautious, Harry once again played the 'I-can't-remember-a-thing' card.

"Um, what happened exactly?" he asked in his most innocent voice.

At his question, Doctor Cullen seemed to come out of a daze but the scrutinising look didn't waver.

"After you ran outside, you were so focused on the scaffolding that you didn't see a shard of metal that had fallen bounce and hit you in the head. It knocked you out cold." He repeated the story with conviction and something else. Was it… wariness?

There was no mention of Harry's involvement, and yet he still wasn't convinced the doctor had not seen anything. He decided to probe further.

"And the building site – are the people alright?" Harry of course had seen himself that everyone had made it safely off, but he needed to know the story that Doctor Cullen was following.

"Don't worry, Harry, everyone is perfectly fine. The structure ended up falling over onto the neighbouring building, allowing the people trapped on top to climb over to safety. It was incredibly lucky." As he said this, the smile that lit up Doctor Cullen's face was so genuine that Harry couldn't help but believe this was the events the doctor had noticed. He mentally sighed in relief. He had gotten away with it.

"I am curious though, Harry. What on earth did you think you could achieve by running outside?" Suddenly the friendly tone disappeared. "Surely you must admit it was a foolish thing to do, especially in your condition," the doctor accused, as he fixed his patient with a scolding look that reminded Harry of the face Mrs Weasley gave her children on a daily basis.

Despite feeling as though he were being told-off for misbehaving, Doctor Cullen's comment annoyed Harry to some degree. The doctor thought him foolish? He had to remind himself that Doctor Cullen had no idea of his magic and so simply saw him as an injured boy who had stupidly tried to play hero.

Instead of answering the question, Harry retorted with one of his own.

"Why didn't  _you_ do anything? Surely you could have called someone for help," he snapped back angrily. He was starting to get a headache.

Doctor Cullen looked as though he was about to counter with something else, but instead he just sighed and turned to head towards the door.

"I do not feel like arguing the subject, Harry. You should get some rest. If you need anything, just press the button beside you and someone will come. Oh, and try to stay put this time." And with that he walked out the door.

Harry continued to stare at the spot where Doctor Cullen had disappeared. The doctor confused him like nothing else. Not only did every conversation with him seem to come to an abrupt end, but he was like no other person Harry had ever come across. His appearance and the way he carried himself contrasted greatly from other people Harry had seen around the hospital. Doctor Cullen 'screamed'  _different_.

He spoke with a refinement and sophistication that wasn't found in this day and age, certainly not in the Muggle world. The way he spoke reminded Harry of how the teachers at Hogwarts did. He was always polite, even when Harry wasn't cooperating with answers to his questions, and also seemed to hold a genuine concern for Harry's wellbeing unlike other Muggle doctors his uncle and aunt had grudgingly taken him to in the past.

There was definitely something not quite right with Doctor Cullen, and had Harry been an ordinary Muggle patient, he would have simply brushed him off as a kind-hearted, oddly good-looking doctor. However Harry was not an ordinary Muggle and so wasn't so quick to disregard what could only be magic. Though he did admit Doctor Cullen was a kind-hearted man.

How did Harry come to the conclusion of magical involvement? Taking into account the doctor's beauty, pale skin, musical voice and ice-cold touch, there was no other solution really. Harry just wasn't sure  _what_ he was. He started off by trying to think of any spells or potions he knew that could cause those effects. He quickly remembered though that he wasn't Hermione and therefore would have absolutely no idea about that subject. He decided on a different approach.

After seven years in the magical world, Harry had learned about an awfully large number of magical creatures. One of his favourite teachers and dearest friends had been one. Harry tried connecting what he knew about werewolves to Doctor Cullen and knew it didn't match up. Werewolves were no different in appearance, certainly not unnaturally beautiful (Fenrir Greyback was testament to this), and were no different in body temperature.

He could be part Veela. That would definitely explain the beauty, but again the cold body temperature proved that theory invalid.

Harry was stumped. He couldn't think of any other possibilities that were plausible. True the idea of half-giant had come to mind, but Harry quickly quashed the stupid suggestion. There had to be some element he was missing; something that would tie all the evidence together and give him an answer.

He went over everything he had noticed about Doctor Cullen once more: pale, freezing skin, striking features, melodious voice. Harry was certain he hadn't noticed something. He replayed both of his conversations with the doctor in his head, looking out for anything that seemed out of the ordinary. Nothing that he remembered struck Harry as particularly odd. Unless…

_Harry turned to Doctor Cullen, hoping to see him going for help, but he stood there motionless. In his eyes was a look of deep indecision and conflict, as though he were having an internal debate on what to do. Looking out the window again, Harry had to admit he felt the same; should he risk doing magic?_

Doctor Cullen's face when the scaffolding was starting to fall had reminded Harry of exactly what he was going through, debating with himself whether to risk revealing magic to save those people's lives. But that was it; his face was  _identical_  to Harry's own at the time, as though he was also questioning whether or not to reveal something about himself.

The doctor had a secret. Maybe he wasn't a magical creature. What if he was just a wizard like Harry? Maybe there really was some potion or strange magical condition that gave you really, really cold skin, though what on earth would be the point in that?

Harry knew, though, that Doctor Cullen simply couldn't be a wizard. His name had drawn no reaction from the doctor. As much as Harry hated the fact, no wizard could meet the famous Harry Potter without blinking in wonder and glancing at his forehead to look for his trademark scar. The man was definitely not a wizard.

But what could Doctor Cullen have done to help without magic? If Harry weren't a wizard, there would have been no way for him to do anything at all to save those people. Unless he had another sort of ability like telekinesis or super strength, Harry would have been useless.

…Super strength? Where had that idea come from? The strongest person he knew was Hagrid, and Harry didn't think that even he would have been able to hold all that metal upright. This would have needed to be super, super strength to do that, so unless Doctor Cullen was hiding an inhuman power he would not have been able to help.

Suddenly the gears in Harry's head began to whir as he expanded on his admittedly bizarre theory. Playing with the amusing thought that the average-sized Doctor Cullen was actually an incredibly powerful super-human, Harry thought of how he could have stopped the structure from falling.

The doctor would have needed to get there pretty fast. Harry had managed to get there just in time, but he didn't need to get right up close to use his magic. In fact he had purposely kept his distance to draw as little attention to himself as possible. If someone were to physically hold it up, they would have had to race right to the bottom of the construction site which was behind an 8 foot tall chain fence.

"Great, now I'm saying that he's incredibly fast too," Harry grumbled to himself. This was getting more ridiculous the more he thought about it. But since when were things in his life not ridiculous?

For amusement purposes, Harry added strength and speed to the list of unnatural features the doctor possessed. Running back through the mental list he had formed of magical creatures, he was disappointed to find that he still couldn't make a match.

Harry was just about to give up when he thought of one he had forgotten. The thought hit him like a steam train, and he almost fell out of his bed when he realised that everything matched. The skin, his good looks, the suspected strength and speed; there was only one thing Doctor Cullen could be.

_Vampire_.

The pain in his head and limbs forgotten, Harry jumped out of bed and began to pace the room. He'd only ever met a vampire once; Slughorn had invited one to his Christmas party in Harry's sixth year and he had been introduced. Now that he thought about it, Sanguini (as the vampire had been named) shared many similar features with Doctor Cullen: the pale skin, flawless features and an incredibly smooth voice. Though Harry could have sworn that Sanguini's eyes had been red.

A hospital seemed like an odd place for a vampire to work. In fact, it was quite odd for one to have an ordinary job among humans at all. In the wizarding world, vampires were subject to all sorts of prejudice, not dissimilar to that which werewolves faced. No one wants to hire vampires and they were, unsurprisingly, seen as untrustworthy. Not all vampires were a part of the wizarding world though and so Harry assumed that Doctor Cullen was one of the ones that lived among Muggles, oblivious to the world of magic.

As Harry pondered his discovery, his fingers aimlessly wandered toward the stitches on the side of his head. Tracing over the small bumps, his attention was drawn once again to the state of his body, or more specifically, his lack of cleanliness. Harry still had blood caked on his skin and he could see dark patches of blood through some of his bandages. Feeling his head again, he thought of the amount of blood that there must have been. This made him wonder…

Why was he still alive?

If Doctor Cullen was a vampire, which Harry was now confident he was, he surely couldn't have coped with the large amount of blood there must have been. What sort of vampire had that level of self-control to not suck dry a bleeding patient?

There was clearly a lot to Doctor Cullen that Harry still didn't know and perhaps never would. He decided that it was too dangerous to let the doctor learn of his discovery and had no intention of doing so.

Happy with this decision, Harry settled himself back down for a much needed rest.


	5. Chapter 4

Following his father's instruction, Edward waited patiently in the small office space while Carlisle had another word with Harry. Slowly revolving in his father's desk chair, Edward was only half-heartedly eavesdropping the conversation, as his thoughts were focused on his inability to read the teenager's mind. He had never come across anyone whose mind he couldn't read before and was curious why his gift suddenly failed him.

A raised voice brought Edward out of his thoughts, and he could hear Harry becoming agitated.

" _Why didn't_ you _do anything? Surely you could have called someone for help."_

Edward heard his father's short sigh of annoyance, similar to the one he would give him or any of his siblings whenever one of them broke a piece of furniture.

" _I do not feel like arguing the subject, Harry. You should get some rest. If you need anything, just press the button beside you and someone will come. Oh, and try to stay put this time."_

Hearing his father leave Harry's room, Edward tuned his mind in to Carlisle's thoughts, wishing he could hear Harry's mental reaction to his doctor's abrupt departure.

' _That boy. I'm worried he isn't ever going to tell me anything. Why can't he see that I only wish to help?'_ His father's thoughts were becoming more uneasy by the minute.

The door opened and Carlisle stepped inside looking genuinely tired. In that moment, Edward thought Carlisle looked more human that he had ever seen. Seeing Edward watching him with concern from his chair, Carlisle stood up straight and moved to perch himself on his desk.

' _I don't understand him, Edward. What has happened to him to make him so mistrustful?'_

Edward had to agree that Harry seemed oddly wary for a teenager, and certainly wasn't quick to trust anyone he didn't know. He could only assume that was because of something that had happened in Harry's past. Once again the annoyance of not being able to read the teenager's mind returned, this time tinged with guilt as he remembered Carlisle had been relying on him to find out information with which to help his patient.

"Sorry," he mumbled to his father. Carlisle looked down at him in surprise and confusion.

' _What on earth are you apologising for?'_

Could Carlisle really not see what he was talking about? Edward stopped spinning.

"I wasn't any help, was I? I was supposed to be able to tell you everything you wanted to know about Harry, and I can't tell you a damn thing. Some gift," he scoffed, disgusted with his failure. Edward knew that Carlisle wouldn't be upset, and that annoyed him even more.

"Edward, you can't beat yourself up about something you have no control over. We were bound to come across someone who could block your ability at some point." He added in his mind; ' _I'm surprised we haven't before after almost a century of moving about.'_

As usual Carlisle was right. The reality was that they had never found anyone in the past whose mind Edward couldn't read and he had confidently assumed that was because there was no one. He had thought his gift was infallible and never in almost ninety years of immortality could he have guessed a human teenager would be the one to prove him wrong. It was almost insulting.

Quickly reminding himself that Harry was not a normal human teenager, Edward felt marginally better and resumed spinning on his chair. His thoughts returned to Harry's defiance against revealing anything about himself. Edward didn't think that having mysterious powers should explain his inability to trust. Perhaps he wasn't normally like this and just didn't trust Carlisle.

This time when Edward stopped revolving he didn't start again.

Harry wasn't hiding information about himself because of his own personality faults. He was hiding information specifically from the person who was asking for it; his doctor who just happened to be a vampire.

Edward's mind began to whir. It made perfect sense! He remembered back to when he was by Harry's bedside, to a word he had heard his father thinking.

_Supernatural._

Whatever it was Harry had done to stop that scaffold structure from falling filed neatly under the heading of supernatural involvement. If he were connected to the world where myths and legends were reality, what was there to say he hadn't figured out what Carlisle was? It was easily plausible that Harry had met vampires before and recognised his doctor as one of the supernatural beings. That would make anyone cautious. Edward had reached his next decision before he even finished this last thought.

They had to leave.

Whatever Harry was, he had discovered their secret and there was only ever one solution for that situation. He didn't know where they would go. Maybe they could go north for a while. Emmett would definitely like the possibility of more grizzlies in their next location. Perhaps they could even stay with the Denalis for a while until they worked out something more permanent.

While Edward had this internal monologue, he was totally oblivious to the look his father was giving him which was growing more concerned by the second.

' _Edward? Do you need to leave and hunt now?'_ But Edward was so deep in his mental debate on how to make sure Harry would stay quiet once they had left (no scenario of which ended too well for Harry) that he didn't hear a word Carlisle had thought.

' _I sometimes wish I had your gift, Edward.'_ "Edward," he called in an attempt to break his son out of his trance. "Edward!" This time Carlisle made to grasp Edward's shoulder in order to give him a gentle shake.

Edward was part way through imagining a conversation with Jasper and Rosalie after they had just returned from disposing of Harry's body, when he saw a hand shoot out at him. Reacting purely on instinct, he leapt out of the chair clawing at the invasive hand as a deep growl resonated in his chest. Only when he heard the loud crash did he snap back to his senses.

Turning on the spot, Edward saw what had made the alarming sound. In his haste at vacating the chair, he had sent it hurtling back into the wall which now had a wide crack running across it, just above what appeared to be the sad remains of what was once a very nice desk chair.  _Oops._

Noticing that he was at eye level with the chair's remains, Edward realised that he was in a defensive crouch. When had he done that? Standing up and righting his shirt, Edward closed his eyes to try and calm himself. He couldn't even remember what had startled him. The memory soon came back to him though as he heard the thoughts of the other person in the room. He had also forgotten he wasn't alone.

' _What was that?!'_

Terribly embarrassed at his brief lapse in control, Edward slowly turned himself around to face his father but didn't meet his gaze.

"The, um, chair got uncomfortable?" he finally lifted his eyes to Carlisle's, knowing that his must appear even darker than before (if that were possible). He cringed at the wariness that he saw there and shrunk back with shame at the thoughts in his father's head, questioning whether he needed to restrain his son. When he spoke, his words mirrored his mind's uneasiness.

"Edward, I think you need to leave." Edward looked at himself in Carlisle's mind and was shocked at what he saw. The darkest shadows he had ever seen circled his pitch black eyes and his teeth were bared in aggression. He was slowly sinking back onto his haunches.

Seeing this, Edward physically tried to relax. Standing up straight and closing his eyes, he stretched himself out trying to rid himself of the adrenaline he felt pumping through his muscles. How had thinking of Harry's potentially necessary death gotten this sort of a rise out of him? Only once he felt as relaxed as he had earlier did he open his eyes and speak.

"I'm sorry, Carlisle. I don't know what happened there. You just caught me on a bad thought." Edward was relieved to see some of the wariness in his father's posture disappear but wasn't surprised he hadn't totally relaxed.

"What kind of thought? I really think it would be best if you went now, Edward. You're obviously too thirsty to be here, I shouldn't have gotten you to stay." Carlisle said this with such concern and finality that Edward almost obeyed, but turning his attention back to the now broken chair, he knew he couldn't leave without warning his father.

"We need to move again." He said this softly to the crack in the wall but knew Carlisle would hear him. Edward was disappointed at having to leave only a couple of years after arriving. He had grown to like Forks in some way.

Carlisle just looked at his son with confusion. "It's only a chair and a crack in the wall, Edward. I'll come up with some excuse, we don't need to leave because of it. That's a bit drastic. _"_

Edward couldn't help but smile at his father's assumption; he thought he was worried about breaking the chair. While he was still embarrassed by his behaviour and was slightly upset he no longer had a chair to spin in, Edward wasn't really worried about the damage he had caused.

"No, not because of the chair, Carlisle. It's Harry. I think he knows what you are." He turned to look back at Carlisle and was confused to see that there was no hint of concern either on his face or in his thoughts. In fact, he was smiling.

"Did you hear what I said? I think Harry knows that you're a vampire." Still getting no reaction out of his father, Edward folded his arms and fixed him with a glare. "Ok, what is it you're not telling me?"

Keeping the smile plastered on his face, Carlisle spoke. "Oh no, you first. After all, you're the one with the suspicions." He made himself comfortable sitting back down on the edge of his desk and waited for Edward to speak. So speak he did.

Edward told Carlisle all about his theory of why Harry didn't trust him enough to tell him anything, about how if he were some supernatural being he could easily have met vampires before and worked everything out, and about how there was really no option other than for them to leave Forks and make sure that somehow Harry would not reveal their identity. He spoke until he had no more to say and looked into Carlisle's eyes.

Edward was irritated to see that the smile on his father's face hadn't changed during his speech. In fact if anything it had grown larger as he listened to the speculations stream out of his son's mouth and noticed the increase in panic with each sentence. Unable to stand Carlisle's amusement any longer, Edward finally snapped.

"What?! How can you possibly find this amusing? Do you even care that our family's safety could be put at risk because of your patient?! Because it certainly doesn't seem like it to me!" he hissed at his father, whose eyes darkened menacingly.

Slowly pushing himself up into a standing position, Carlisle strode over to stand in front of Edward, never breaking eye contact. Drawing himself to his full height, he brought his face close to his son's and spoke in a calm but dangerous voice. "Do not suggest, Edward, for one second that I do not take the safety of our family seriously. Do you understand?"

There was very little in the world that frightened Edward, but at that moment he was genuinely afraid of his father. His resolve faltered and he took a step back as he said his next words.

"I– I just don't understand why you're not worried about a human knowing." For the second time in just a few minutes, Edward felt like a misbehaving child being told off by his father. He added in a quiet voice, "Of course I understand. We mean everything to you."

Carlisle sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose as he turned away and wandered aimlessly around the room.

"I'm sorry, Edward, I shouldn't have snapped. It's been a trialing day for all of us." He moved around to the other side of his desk meaning to sit down before remembering that his son had just destroyed his chair. He settled for resting on the desk like before.

"As for why I'm not concerned, it is simply because I see no reason to be. If Harry has figured out what I am, for which we have no proof in favour or otherwise, then that can only be because he has encountered our type in his past, as you say." He said all this very quickly, clearly in a hurry to reach the point he was trying to make.

"None of us have ever heard of a human fitting his description who knows about the existence of vampires. I believe if he were a threat, the Volturi would know of him and would have… disposed of the threat." At this Edward saw in Carlisle's mind Aro standing over a crumpled heap, his eyes a brilliant red and lips coated in fresh blood.

Edward had to fight hard to control the sudden thirst that burned in his throat at the image of Harry's blood. His fists clenched and eyes screwed shut as he tried to shut out his father's thoughts. Carlisle must have noticed his son's discomfort as the image quickly disappeared and was replaced with his last conversation with Harry.

"We both know that Harry is hiding something, and he's hiding it from me just as much as he is from the other doctors. He wants whatever it is he's hiding to remain a secret just as much as we want our identity to remain secret. I think that I've managed to convince him that no one saw him save those people but I can't be certain.

"If he does know what I am and he thinks that I know nothing about what he can do, then I'm hoping he will not see the need to reveal us. If we are seen to move against him though, intentionally or otherwise, I can't be sure that will hold."

Edward stood in silence, reflecting on everything Carlisle had said. It was true that they had no way of knowing whether or not Harry had figured anything out, but they should at least reciprocate his possible truce by not revealing his secret. With this, Edward grudgingly agreed that it was not necessary for them to move… at least not yet.

"Fine. But if at any point it becomes clear that Harry has figured out what you are, do you promise we'll consider moving?"

Carlisle only hesitated for a millisecond. "I promise that when the time comes we will have a proper discussion with the rest of the family."

Suddenly a new idea came to Edward. He knew Carlisle would never agree to it, but it was worth a try.

"Do you think, perhaps, it might be a good idea to pass Harry into the care of another doctor? Just to keep the chances of him finding anything out as low as possible?"

' _Are you kidding? Harry is the most interesting patient I've had in well over a century, there's no chance I would give him up.'_

Edward couldn't help but smile at his father's enthusiasm for the unknown and he knew the answer to his next question without even needing to ask it.

"What happens now then?"

"Research. We don't have much to go on," he paused. "In fact we have almost nothing at all, but there must be something in my notes that can give some clues."

Carlisle's eyes were lightening ever so slightly with the thought of losing himself amongst the avalanches of books and journals in his study. His mind was already planning possible places to start and soon enough a list began forming in his head of all the books he would read.

"Surely you know by now what most of those say without reading them again," joked Edward, as he watched the pile of books in Carlisle's head grow above seven feet high.

Startled out of his daydream, the image disappeared and Carlisle looked at Edward sheepishly as though he had just been caught in an embarrassing act. If he were human, Edward thought his father would have been blushing.

Collecting himself, Carlisle defended, "A true pursuer of knowledge can find new information even in books he has read in the past." A smirk played on his lips at Edward's unconvinced look. "Even if he's lived for over three centuries and has read it thousands of times before." Edward laughed.

Carlisle stood up from his desk and moved over to his filing cabinet. "I had best get back to work, Edward. I'm sure the others are dying to know what's happened."

"Alice is probably driving them all crazy." Edward could picture Alice racing about the house frustrated at not being able to see anything that was happening. He made to move towards the door. "I'll see you when you get home, Carlisle."

"Yes, see you tonight, Edward." Edward watched as Carlisle's gaze fell back onto the remains of the chair. ' _And I want to talk to you more about_ that  _later.'_

Oh good, another father-son chat. Edward merely grunted his understanding and stepped out of his father's office. Boy did he have a story for the others.


	6. Chapter 5

Edward pulled his silver Volvo into the garage of their home and shut off the engine. Leaning back onto the head rest of his seat, he ran over in his mind everything Carlisle had told him that afternoon.

For two years the Cullens had lived in Forks with absolutely no threat to their secret. True the Quileutes were nearby down at the reservation, but they had generally kept to themselves since no one was breaking the treaty. Now all of a sudden in the space of a few hours they were being faced with something both unknown and dangerous to their secret. No matter how sure Carlisle was, Edward still didn't trust Harry.

Why should he? How could Carlisle expect him to put his faith in someone like Harry? The boy had appeared out of nowhere, refused to say anything about himself at all and then turned out to be some ridiculously powerful being with special abilities. And now this same person quite possibly knew of the Cullens' true identity and could reveal them at any moment.

Edward wanted to believe in his father's judgement. Ever since his days of rebellion, he had learned to trust Carlisle and his decisions for the family, but Edward wasn't sure he could muster that level of trust this time. If he couldn't trust his own father's judgement, whose could he?

A light tapping on the driver's window startled Edward out of his thoughts. He turned to look into the small, angry face of his sister, Alice. Her darkened eyes bore into his as she relayed her silent message. 'Oi! You can't just sit in your car all day. Some of us want to know what's going on!'

Edward sighed and opened his door. "Alright keep your hair on. I'm coming inside." Climbing gracefully out of his seat, Edward felt the rush of wind as Alice darted back into the house to wait for him. He pushed the door shut, pressed the lock button on his key, and slowly made his way out of the garage.

'Take your time, dear brother. No one's waiting for you or anything.' He heard the annoyed thoughts of his sister once more as he opened the front door and made his way through to the living room where the rest of his family were already waiting. Alice had obviously insisted that everyone be there to hear what Edward was going to say, and typically some of them looked like they would rather not be there at all.

Alice was fixing him with her best irritated glare from where she perched on the lap of her husband, who was eyeing Emmett uncomfortably. Following Jasper's gaze, Edward looked at his other brother to see him watching Rosalie hungrily. Arm slung casually over his wife's waist to play with the hem of her blouse, Emmett's mind was filled with images of what Edward's arrival had clearly interrupted. Grimacing at his brother's thoughts, Edward turned to look at the only person in the room who seemed genuinely pleased to see him.

Esme was sitting on the sofa looking at her first son with worry written on her face. Edward hated to see her in such a state, especially when Carlisle wasn't there to wrap his arms around her and tell her everything would be okay. Sometimes Edward would do that in his father's place, but he knew that as her son he could never calm her as her husband could.

'What's happened, Edward? What did Carlisle tell you?' When he replied, Edward spoke to her.

"Carlisle found a new patient this morning on his way in to work."

'Found?' the one word reverberated around in Edward's head from the five other vampires sitting in the room. He expanded.

"Just before he came to the main road into town, Carlisle found a boy lying by the side of the road unconscious and badly injured. He put him in the car to drive him to the hospital and has been looking after him ever since."

Esme's thoughts suddenly burst with pride at her husband. 'That man. What would Forks do without him?' Edward smiled at his mother's reaction. There was no doubt in the love that she and Carlisle held for each other. His compassion and her gentle, maternal nature complemented perfectly, and Edward paused briefly to appreciate the couple he was lucky to call his parents.

Alice however did not appreciate the pause and was desperate for him to continue.

"Is that the patient Carlisle was telling me about? The one who got hurt with the scaffolding? What happened to him?" She was rattling off questions so fast Edward put his hands up to stop her, but before he could answer any of her questions, Emmett broke in.

"Ok that's the third time today you've mentioned this damn scaffold. What are you talking about?" Looking around at his family, Edward could see that Emmett wasn't the only one who didn't know the story; Jasper looked equally confused, Esme was beginning to look worried again, and Rosalie still looked like she'd much rather be anywhere than listening to her brother raving on about one of Carlisle's patients. Edward turned to Alice and frowned.

"You didn't bother to tell them?" He asked, harsher than he intended. He had been certain that Alice would have told them every bit of the limited story she knew, or at least told Jasper, but his facial expression and thoughts clearly showed he hadn't been told a thing.

Alice wasn't perturbed by her brother's tone and simply stated, "I didn't want to say anything until you got home with the whole story. It makes much more sense to hear about what happened in order." Relaxing back into Jasper's arms, she gestured for Edward to continue his tale, but Esme cut in before he could open his mouth. Her thoughts were now focused on Harry and what sort of a condition he was in.

"What happened to the boy? Had he been hit by a car?" Her motherly instincts were kicking in and she was quickly becoming anxious. Jasper began shifting restlessly underneath Alice, and Edward could hear the panic in his brother's mind as he absorbed Esme's fear.

Edward quickly shook his head. "No, Carlisle doesn't think so, and seeing him for myself I would probably agree." His thoughts clouded over as he remembered all the cuts and bruises marring Harry's entire body. "He was covered in scars and grazes, some of which looked days or weeks old. Some of them were so… unusual that Carlisle couldn't properly treat them." Esme gasped in despair.

"Oh you don't think the poor dear was neglected, do you? How old is he?"

Edward was unsure how to answer. Carlisle hadn't mentioned anything about the chance of Harry being abused, nor had the idea appeared in his thoughts, but could they really rule out the possibility? After all, Harry had avoided any questions asked about his parents.

"I'm sure it's not that, Esme," he reassured her in a quiet voice. "Harry is in perfectly safe hands at the hospital, and will be better in no time." Edward didn't need to be able to read minds to see that his words had done little to ease his mother's worry. Trying to move on from the depressing – yet potentially realistic – topic, he answered the second part of her question. "At a guess I would think he is about 17."

'17. Far too young to be on his own.' If his mother still had a beating heart, Edward knew it would be breaking out of despair. He looked at Esme in wonder; how one person could hold so much love and concern for someone she had never met astounded him. She truly was Carlisle's wife.

"Uh, hello? Did anyone hear me say that none of us know about this scaffolding thing? Now would be a good time to explain." Emmett was looking around at the faces of his family, searching for agreement that they wanted to know too. He was disappointed with the response; Alice was fixing Edward with a scrutinising stare while Jasper was still looking pained from Esme's emotions. Rosalie just looked bored. Dissatisfied with the lack of reactions, he fixed his eyes back on Edward.

And so Edward began the story. He told them how Carlisle had tried but failed to get Harry to explain how he had ended up by the side of the road; how they had both watched the structure at the construction site begin to topple with seven people hanging on for dear life. He told them about Harry's escape out of the hospital and onto the street to get closer to the danger, but he stopped when he got up to what Harry did next, finding he couldn't go on.

"Well don't stop there! You can't stop at the climax!" Jasper cried, exasperated. Emmett of course had to ruin the moment.

"That's some solid relationship advice there, Jasper. You hear that, Rose? Never sto–"

"Emmett!" Esme chastised, to which Emmett looked appropriately guilty. Far too used to his brother's antics, Edward continued as though he had never been interrupted.

"It's just… difficult to explain." He grimaced at his own understatement. Difficult to explain. He'd never had anything more ridiculous to explain to his family: a boy that could make solid objects float? Ludicrous.

'Get on with it, Edward. Or do I have to show you what I'd rather be doing right now?' Rosalie fixed a smirk on her beautiful face as an elaborate performance began in her mind. Keen to cut her off before she could get too far into her mental act, Edward spoke.

"Harry stopped the scaffolding from killing those people," he blurted, hoping that if he said everything at once he wouldn't be required to explain it all again. "He pulled something out of his pocket, pointed it at the construction site and suddenly it stopped falling. Harry saved those people's lives," he finished rather lamely.

If Edward thought he was getting disapproving looks from his siblings before, they were nothing compared to the expressions surrounding him now. He was faced with a mixture of confusion and exasperation, as none of them knew quite whether to take him seriously or not. No one spoke until Rosalie summed up everyone's thoughts in four words.

"He's finally lost it," she muttered. Thoughts of agreement spiralled around in Edward's mind from his three other siblings. Of course Esme was the only one not to jump to conclusions about Edward's sanity… at least not yet anyway. She looked at him with confusion etched upon her gentle features.

"Edward…I don't understand. What do you mean he saved them? How could a human boy possibly do that?" Edward couldn't help the chuckle that escaped past his lips.

"Well that's just it, Esme. Human is the operative word here. Carlisle believes – and I agree – that there is something distinctly 'not-human' about Harry." Looking around once more, he was starting to tire of the confused faces and so decided to just keep talking until he had no more to say.

"When Carlisle took me into Harry's room, the first thing I noticed was this aura surrounding him," he began as he paced around the room to work off his pent-up energy. "It reminded me of what it feels like when there's another vampire around, but at the same time was completely different. He's clearly for the most part human because he has a heart-beat and blood flowing through his veins, but I could feel he is immensely powerful.

"There was something else too. I didn't notice it myself because I was trying not to breathe," at this comment a tirade of sympathetic thoughts came to him from his mother. He gave her a brief smile to show her he was fine, and carried on. "But Carlisle mentioned that Harry smelt different to him. Not like a regular human would. Whatever it is that's different about him runs in his blood." He stopped pacing and looked at his feet, waiting for the next set of arguments. "I don't blame you for not believing me. I wouldn't have thought it were possible myself without seeing it in Carlisle's mind."

An uncomfortable silence filled the room as each of the Cullen's thought about everything Edward had said. Sure he was known to overreact to things, and he certainly had a not-so-subtle love of winding his family up, especially if it involved his brothers, but this was different. As they watched their brother stand there with his head lowered and shoulders slumped, they couldn't help but believe what he was saying, no matter how impossible it sounded.

Hearing this, Edward added, "Trust me, impossible doesn't even begin to describe it."

"What does Carlisle think?" Edward couldn't help the rush of affection that he felt towards Emmett as he asked that question (which made Jasper raise a confused eyebrow). If Emmett was asking a serious question, Edward knew his family would pay attention now.

"He has no idea either. Harry's given him very little information to work with."

Edward turned to look at his sister, whose thoughts were questioning. 'But...'

"I don't understand, Edward. Didn't Carlisle want your help to get information from Harry's mind? Shouldn't you have been able to tell him everything he needed?" Edward had been wondering when his gift's failure would come up.

"I would have if I had anything to tell him." He looked down at his feet once more as the embarrassment returned. "I– I can't read Harry's mind," he murmured to the floorboards. Even though he couldn't see their reactions, he heard the small gasps of surprise from his family. None of them had expected that.

"Hold on a second," Emmett said slowly. "Are you telling me that none of your powers work on this kid? How the hell does he do that?"

Edward just shook his head in response. The only person that could possibly explain was lying on a hospital bed in Carlisle's care and not saying a word.

Jasper began idly playing with Alice's hand as his thoughts strayed to his own powers. 'I wonder if I could manipulate his emotions…' Hearing his brother's thought made Edward wonder the same thing.

"I don't know, Jasper. It would be good to try."

Jasper drew his attention away from his and Alice's entwined hands to nod once at Edward. Alice however eyed her brother suspiciously.

"Is that it? End of the story? Nothing else you want to share?" Edward narrowed his eyes at her. She couldn't possibly have seen his slip in Carlisle's office, right? He had decided to stay well away from that topic. Carlisle had already promised a chat about that later and he didn't feel he needed another one from the rest of his family.

"That's most of it. When the scaffolding fell after everyone was safely off, a piece of metal hit Harry in the head and he needed stitches. He's fine now though," he added quickly at the look on Esme's face. Alice still wasn't going to give in.

"You sure that's everything?"

Edward hesitated. Should he bother mentioning his earlier suspicions about Harry knowing of vampires? Carlisle didn't seem overly concerned, but Edward wasn't convinced of the boy's ignorance.

He looked over at Esme and when he saw the same worry and concern in her eyes, he knew he couldn't say anything. The last thing he wanted to do was to put more worry on her shoulders. He squared his shoulders and looked back at Alice.

"Positive."

"OK!" Whether Alice believed him or not was unclear, as she hopped out of Jasper's lap and pulled him upstairs after her. She obviously deemed the conversation to be over.

Emmett stood up as well but didn't race out of the room like his siblings. Instead, he turned to Edward and asked, "We're still going hunting tonight, aren't we? All of us?" He looked between the other three faces searching for a confirmation. Emmett loved hunting as a family and always made a competition out of who could get the biggest catch. They usually had to stray a bit further north into grizzly territory for it to be any sort of entertainment.

"I don't know, Emmett. Carlisle said he wanted to research tonight to see if he could figure out anything about Harry." Edward told him, already hearing the disappointment in his brother's mind accompanied by an overly dramatic pout on his face.

"Aw. Fine." Looking down at Rosalie, his pout was quickly replaced by a seductive grin as he lifted her up bridal style and flew up the stairs. Their laughter was ineffectively shut off by the slam of a door. It was a shame the door couldn't block their thoughts too.

Esme sighed and stood up from her sofa, moving over to the window. Edward watched her closely.

'I hope Carlisle can get Harry to talk. He needs someone looking out for him.'

Edward's silent heart suddenly burst with emotion at his mother's thoughts. She was picturing how she imagined Harry: scared and alone in the world, with no one but his doctor trying to care for him. Edward was relieved she didn't know just how accurate that picture was.

Stepping up behind his mother, Edward wrapped his arms around her small frame and held her close.

"Don't worry, Esme. Everything will be okay."


End file.
